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Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA) filed a Form 8K – Other Events – with the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission on November 09, 2009.

On November 9, 2009, the European Commission issued a statement of objections relating to the acquisition of Sun by Oracle Corporation. The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission’s preliminary assessment regarding, and is limited to, the combination of Sun’s open source MySQL database product with Oracle’s enterprise database products and its potential negative effects on
competition in the market for database products. The issuing of a Statement of Objections allows addressees to present arguments in response to the Commission’s preliminary assessment of the competitive effects of a notified transaction. A Statement of Objections is a preparatory document that does not prejudge the European Commission’s final decision. Any final decision by the European Commission is subject to appeal to the European Court of First Instance.

Comments (4 of 4)

Has anyone considered that EU antitrust legislation is different from the US version? Perhaps Oracle has satisfied the US DOJ that they do not break any US antitrust laws, but even if they did, that has no bearing on the EU's position, because the laws in the EU are much more strict.
Fact I: MySQL is - or was, at least - a serious competitor for Oracle.
Fact II: Oracle will now gain control of a competitor's market share.
Maybe Oracle's management should get its head out of the sand and comply with the EU's requests for proof, instead of resting their entire case on the fact that the US DOJ has cleared the deal?

11:23 pm November 9, 2009

another arbtrader wrote :

This whole saga could make European funded open source companies quite valuable - as anti-takeover poison pills. Sun shareholders probably have realized the mssql pill was quite bitter.

9:45 pm November 9, 2009

arbtrader69 wrote :

ORCL has signalled that they are going to fight, and fight hard to get this thru. How much pull does it take to get the DOJ bureaucrats to release a PR in support of your deal? The DOJ directly contradicts and undercuts their counterparts in the EU. Wow. Never seen that happen.

It'll be intersting to see if Deal Journal can source the text of the EU objections. So far press reports have been quite vague. Keep it up WSJ, keep the info rolling in. AT

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